The Laugher Curve

[WilliamPitt]

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). (Photo: Getty Images)

The Laugher Curve
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Wednesday 04 March 2009

Some weeks ago, I penned an article titled "Dump the GOP," which argued in part, "President Obama can work with the Democratic congressional majorities to pass future legislation, perhaps making sure to get one GOP vote in the Senate to thwart a filibuster. If no such vote is forthcoming, he can dump any quixotic quest for one or any GOP votes and dare the GOP to filibuster widely popular bills. He's not going to get GOP support for anything, so why bother trying? Let them keep it up and lose every time, and let them try to stand on that record for the 2010 midterms."

It appears my advice in this matter was a tad premature. President Obama does not have to dump the GOP, for it appears quite evident they are doing just fine dumping themselves without any help from the administration. As it turns out, this has not been a sudden thing, but a long and drawn-out event now entering its third year. The Republican Party's descent from total domination of the entire federal government to a state of utter disorder has come to pass after a clearly identifiable arc of events we will call, for the purposes of explanation and with tongue firmly in cheek, "The Laugher Curve."

On Monday, November 6, 2006, the Republican Party was enjoying the fruits it had gained after three victorious election cycles in a row, two presidential and one congressional. Republicans had been in control of the White House for six years, and barring a slight hiccup when James Jeffords woke up on the left side of the bed, they had also held sway over Congress for twelve years. The Executive Branch under Bush so thoroughly dominated the agenda of the Legislative Branch that the two were essentially transformed into that Unitary entity long desired by the likes of Vice President Cheney.

That Monday, as it turns out, was the GOP's high-water mark. On Tuesday, November 7, 2006, the Democratic Party took back the House and Senate, and for all practical purposes, the presidential administration of George W. Bush was politically finished, and the power of the Republican Party began to collapse. The writing had been on the wall all year; a multitude of congressional sex-and-bribery scandals had riddled the GOP, a mudfight over immigration had split their coalition, and party leader George W. Bush was garnering the lowest presidential approval ratings in recorded history. The Democrats did not run a particularly sharp or effective campaign to retake Congress in 2006, but the GOP did so good a job at damaging itself that such a campaign was not actually needed.

Flash forward to the presidential campaign of 2008, when the chaos that has so overtaken the Republican Party truly began to sink in. Candidates Romney and Giuliani found themselves crippled by the Huckabee campaign's overwhelming popularity with the GOP base. In primary after primary, neither was able earn enough base votes to survive, but Huckabee could not gain enough non-base votes to prevail, either. In the end, all three campaigns annihilated each other, and only John McCain remained.

The GOP base, however, reviled McCain's positions on immigration, campaign finance reform, the environment and Bush's tax cuts. McCain had no hope of winning without those base voters, so his campaign spent the entire general election season trying to back its way into the good graces of the GOP base, going so far as to tap Alaska governor and base darling Sarah Palin to join McCain on the ticket. Already burdened by so much bad GOP baggage, the disastrous Palin nomination struck the McCain campaign - and indeed the entire Republican party - like an Exocet missile below the waterline. The whole lot of them have been sinking ever since.

Today, the Democratic Party controls both the Legislative and Executive Branches. President Obama, through masterfully delivered public addresses and carefully articulated policy initiatives, now dominates the high ground of American politics. Meanwhile, the GOP has been defending policies only popular within its base to hold what it still has, which marginalizes the party even further. The entire Republican Party, it seems, has spent the last week bending a knee to Rush Limbaugh, whose far-right grandstanding is leading the GOP even further into darkness.

Sooner or later the party will re-emerge, for that is the way of things in American politics. In the meantime, however ... hoo, boy, what a glorious mess this is.

Dump the GOP? No need; the GOP is doing just fine dumping itself, and neither the Obama administration nor the Democrats need to lift a finger. They are obeying a very old maxim of Chicago politics: never get in the way of a perfectly good train wreck.

http://www.truthout.org/030409J

[Soylent Brice]

1. the last bit about the party reemerging,

one could make a compelling argument that the last eight years may result in a complete systematic disassemblance of the GOP. if/when it does reemerge, it will be almost unrecognizable to the older generations.

i don't think they're going to ever make a full recovery from this one.

K&R

[WilliamPitt]

2. That exact sentiment was expressed after Watergate and Vietnam.

The GOP recovered from that.

So.

[annabanana]

3. true.. They're mudwrestling for our amusement right now..

But there is a virulent strain that always seems to survive.

[starroute]

6. Things are somewhat different now

After Watergate, the GOP wasn't in the hands of its extremist base and right-wing talk show hosts. It was still being run by experienced party leaders, and the Southern Strategy was only just beginning to recruit the racists and the religious right.

After Watergate, Nixon was discredited, but his corruption had not tarred the entire GOP. Ford was not tainted. Reagan was not tainted. Congressional Republicans were not tainted.

After Watergate, there were any number of GOP senators and governors who could plausibly present themselves as potential presidential candidates. Right now, most of what should be the rising GOP generation born between about 1956 and 1962 -- the people of Jack Abramoff's and Grover Norquist's age who overdosed on the Reagan revolution -- has discredited itself in one way or another. The Senate has no one left of national stature. The last few decent GOP governors are caught in the riptide between Obama's economic recovery plans and the obstructionism of the national GOP.

(This, by the way, is why they *have* to hope Obama fails. "I told you so" is their only prayer of regaining any claim to leadership.)

After Watergate, there was a also whole new cohort of rabid young GOP dirty tricksters and party operatives -- Karl Rove and his pals coming out of the College Republicans, plus the more ideologically-driven movement conservative types out of YAF. Their closest equivalents today -- and there aren't all that many of them -- seem to have no higher aspirations than running racially-slanted bake sales.

Yeah, the GOP may rebuild itself eventually -- though it could also dwindle into a far right rump party and be replaced by some sort of Libertarian/business coalition. But its wounds go far deeper and its resources for healing are far weaker than they were in 1974.

[rucognizant]

7. But.........

I think a larger portion of the public is more aware now! We have the Internet, not a factor back then; which enabled the Cato Inst.,Heritage Found, etc, the take over of media, & parts of publishing , & education........that would be harder for them to achieve at the present.
Back in 1981, I was a divorced empty nester. I sought to pursue my shelved ambition to illustrate children's books.
SO I was sitting in a phone booth in lower Manhatten, with NY yellow pages........systematically calling publishers.
I was stunned to see the mergers, buyouts, of all my childhood favorite publishing houses. There were really only about 5 BIG publishers. Then, reagan enacted the warehousing law, which meant that it was too costly, to print large editions and warehouse them. ( Some of my treasured books were printed in the 70's and now irreplaceable. The Joy of Sex original
had MUCH NICER DRAWINGS, than the just republished edition!................)
I reluctantly shifted my career direction and was cued in very early, to the disaster that was about to take us down.
barbara bush's father had a publishing Co. Either wolfowitz or negraponte ( neocons) worked in publishing before cabinet posts and the brother still works in publishing.
neil bush is producing the "Ignite" software learning system for kids, pushing sales to schools, that trains the kids to rote learning, rather than critical thinking! ( housed in a purple cow!)
Happy to say that some small independant publishing houses are flourishing today.and I have just completed pictures for the Machias Patriots, the story of the first Naval Battle of the Revolutionary War.....which happened in Machias Maine.
Also the Democrats have embraced the concept of "framing" language well since then!
Don't forget it was 40 years before the Repugs came in from the cold after FDR.! And if Give em hell Harry hadn't dropped the bombs, they might have stayed in power?
( I don't do caps for Repigs..)

[Soylent Brice]

8. yeah yeah, and history repeats itself, yada yada yada.

thanks buzzkill.

lol

just for today, one day only, i want to pretend that the GOP has died off like the mastadon.

[FiveGoodMen]

10. The fuckers who listen to Hannity and Limbaugh are still with us

They do, in fact, hate us for our freedoms.

They will continue to vote and candidates that appeal to them will continue to emerge.

How important is it what they call themselves?

The evil that made the puke party is not vanquished. Even now, they still own the media.

Turn your back on the enemy at your own peril.

[WilliamPitt]

4. .

[rtassi]

5. That was fun to read ... Thank you!

It only takes a slight shift in American perception ... the right crisis, (manufactured or real) presented by the next model with a microphone .. and we will see them back in the race. The Iraq war should be a lasting lesson on how easy we are to sell .. Of course, I don't need to tell you that ... as it has been your passion to tell us!
rt

[Hissyspit]

9. k'd & r'd nt

[donheld]

11. K & R

[BobTheSubgenius]

12. "The Laugher Curve."

Brilliant! Their bullshit is DEFINITELY on the right (as opposed to "left", and not in any sense "correct") side of the curve.